Re: [PATCH rhel6-branch] network: using more than one NICs (iSCSI) (#638131, #634016)

From: Radek Vykydal <rvykydal redhat com>

To: Discussion of Development and Customization of the Red Hat Linux Installer <anaconda-devel-list redhat com>

Subject: Re: [PATCH rhel6-branch] network: using more than one NICs (iSCSI) (#638131, #634016)

Date: Wed, 05 Jan 2011 16:07:46 +0100

On 01/04/2011 02:53 PM, Radek Vykydal wrote:

With the patch, anaconda should be able to fetch repositories via one
NIC while accessing iSCSI via different NIC (#638131).

To answer good question Chris Lumens posed on #anaconda IRC
concerning reconfiguration of NIC enabled (using cmdline configuration)
to fetch kickstart by kickstart network command:
- In rhel 5.6 we apply the kickstart configuration of first network command,
other network commands only set configuration for post install reboot.
- In rhel 6.0 all network commands only set configuration that is applied
only after reboot.
(There is one issue that devices having ONBOOT=yes set will be brought
up before package installation, when network configuration is written
into ifcfg files. This might cause routing problems, though none has been
reported yet. It is to be handled in separate bug.)
- With the patchset, network commands concerning already activated device
only set post-install configuration - the device is not reconfigured in
installer - same as in 6.0. Other devices having new --activate option
are brought up in loader. (The ONBOOT=yes issue remains as in 6.0)
Do we want to change it back to the 5.6? I'm not against it but I think it
would be better to do it in a separate bug.

I noticed that the patchset is changing behaviour from 5.6 and 6.0 in
the case

when network is not brought up before parsing ks. In 5.6 and 6.0
we would bring network up using first network command, whereas with
this patchset, it would be so only if --activate is present in the first
command. I will fix this so that if network is not up, --activate flag
(lack of it) is ignored and the device is activated.
Radek